They don’t have any aerobridges at Hobart Airport, so we had to use a ramp (pictured below) which took us out onto the open tarmac when leaving the plane. Usually, my wheelchair is bought up to the plane door where mum carries me to it. I don’t usually use the Qantas aisle wheelchairs as they are not designed to support me. This time my wheelchair wasn’t allowed to be brought to the door for me. I was told they could only bring the Qantas aisle wheelchair up the ramp and no personal wheelchairs are permitted on the ramp. I questioned the reason to why this was, I was informed it was policy.
Mum had to carry me down the very long ramp to the tarmac where my wheelchair sat waiting for me. I wasn’t impressed with their ramp process. To make things worst, as I was put into my wheelchair I discovered I had an extremely flat back tyre. The Qantas ground crew member who delivered my wheelchair to me didn’t seem to understand why a flat tyre was a major issue and asked if I could still drive on it. I explained I couldn’t go anywhere until it was pumped up as it isn’t drive-able being dead flat like it was. It took the Qantas ground crew about 10 minutes to track down a pump and pump it up for me while we waited on the tarmac. I’m not sure why it went flat, It didn’t have a puncture and stayed up on the remainder of our trip. I am guessing the air pressure on the plane might have made it go down. Luckily it was an easy fix with Qantas’s help and we could continue on our Tasmania Adventure.
On our flight home mum had to still carry me all the way up the very long ramp on to the plane again at Hobart airport because of the “no personal wheelchair on ramp rule” Even though we were expecting it this time, we still found this unnecessary as there is a perfectly accessible ramp available I could use in my wheelchair to get to the plane door.